Chapter 4: Eurasian Empires (KC 2.2)

Key Concept 2.1: The Development and Codification of ReligionsStrayer: Chapter 5

Key Concept 2.2: The Development of States and EmpiresStrayer: Chapters 4-7 depending on theme and region

Key Concept 2.3: Emergence of Transregional Networks of Communication and ExchangeStrayer: Chapters 4, 8

As the early empires grew in number, size, and population, they increasingly competed for

resources and came into conflict with one another. In quest of land, wealth, and security,

some of the empires expanded dramatically. In doing so, they built powerful military

machines and administrative institutions that were capable of organizing activities over long

distances, and they created new groups of military and political elites to manage their affairs.

As these empires expanded their boundaries, they also faced the need to develop policies

and procedures to govern their relations with ethnically and culturally diverse populations:

sometimes to integrate them within an imperial society and sometimes to exclude them. In

some cases, these empires became victims of their own successes; by expanding boundaries

too far, they laid the foundations for political, cultural, and administrative difficulties that

they could not manage. They also experienced social and economic problems when they

permitted wealth to concentrate in the hands of privileged classes and when they devoted

resources to the maintenance and protection of far-flung imperial territories.

Key Concept 2.2 The Development of States and Empires

I. The number and size of key states and empires grew dramatically as rulers imposed political unity on areas where previously there had been

competing states.

A. Key states and empires that grew included:

● Southwest Asia: Persian empires ● East Asia: Qin and Han empires● South Asia: Mauryan and Gupta empires● Mediterranean region: Phoenicia and its colonies, Greek city-states and colonies, and Hellenistic and Roman empires● Mesoamerica: Teotihuacan, Maya city-states● Andean South America: Moche● North America: Chaco and Cahokia

** Note: Students should know the location and names of the key empires/states

II. Empires and states developed new techniques of imperial administration based, in part, on the success of earlier political forms.

A. In order to organize their subjects, in many regions imperial rulers created administrative institutions, including centralized governments, as

well as elaborate legal systems and bureaucracies.

B. Imperial governments promoted trade and projected military power over larger areas using a variety of techniques, including issuing

currencies; diplomacy; developing supply lines; building fortifications, defensive walls, and roads; and drawing new groups of military officers

and soldiers from the location populations or conquered populations.

IV. The Roman, Han, Persian, Mauryan, and Gupta empires encountered political, cultural, and administrative difficulties that they could not

manage, which eventually led to their decline, collapse, and transformation into successor empires or states.

A. Through excessive mobilization of resources, erosion of established political institutions, and economic changes, imperial governments

generated social tensions and created economic difficulties by concentrating too much wealth in the hands of elites.

B. Security issues along their frontiers, including the threat of invasions, challenged imperial authority.

Key Concept 2.2 The Development of States and Empires

2.2.I: The number and size of key states and empires grew dramatically by imposing political unity on areas where previously there had been competing states. Key States and Empires include:

Strayer:

• The Earliest Empires were developed in the era of First Civilizations (Pd. 1) • Akkadian Empire

• Babylonian Empire

• Assyrian Empire

• Egyptian Empire (diff. forms/variations)

• Empires have been central to world history for 4,000 years (Sumer and Egypt to present day)

• Simple answer: political systems with coercive power

• More typical: larger, more aggressive states• Conquer other states

• Use their resources

• Usually include multiple peoples and cultures under a single political system

• Common problems: • Would they seek to impose the culture of the imperial heartland on their

varied subjects?

• Would they rule conquered people directly or through established local authorities?

• How could they extract the wealth of empire in the form of taxes, tribute, and labor while maintaining order in conquered territories?

• All collapse.

• No clear line between empires and small multiethnic states.

What is an Empire?

Changes in Ch4 Eurasian Empires, 500 BCE to 500 CE

▪ Mesopotamian city-states were absorbed into larger empires

▪ Egypt suffered a series of foreign conquests▪ Indus Valley civilization declined in face of

desertification and political collapse▪ Norte Chico civilization faded away by 1800

b.c.e.▪ Olmecs (MesoAmerica) apparently razed &

abandoned their major cities around 400 b.c.e.

▪ China fragmented into warring states

Big Picture - After 1st Civilizations: What Changed & What Didn’t?

Proof of Assyrian Empire atrocities:They were proud enough to carve their story to stone.

Mesopotamian city-states paid the consequence.

Keep in mind that these periods of invasion, war, & conquest have serious consequences. Impact on women, children, & those conquered were often devastating.Yet, all this war & conquest resulted in a world where progress was made, technology created, & the world would never quite be the same after the “Classical Age”.Tremendous advancements, but at a cost.

Social inequality & hierarchy• Chapters 4, 5, & 6 really flow

together.

• Really just one big, Eurasian “Classical Era” -

• Political Empire, Conquest, Cultural Dev., & Social Inequalities.

Sasanian Empire224-661

Parthian Empire227 BCE – 224 CE

A. In order to organize their subjects, in many regions the rulers created administrative institutions, including centralized governments as well as elaborate legal systems and bureaucracies.

2.2.II: Empires and states developed new techniques of imperial administration, based, in part, on the success of earlier political forms.

Illustrative example: Persia (ca. 550 BCE – 661 CE)

Achaemenid Empire550 BCE – 330 BCE

A. In order to organize their subjects, in many regions the rulers created administrative institutions, including centralized governments as well as elaborate legal systems and bureaucracies.

Under the rule of Cyrus (reigned 557-530 BCE and Darius (r. 522-486 BCE), Persianconquests covered an immense amount of land from Egypt to India.

How does a king govern such a large amount of land? New systems had to be put into place for administration (2.2.I.A):• Persian governors, or satraps were placed in

each of the empire’s 23 provinces. • Lower-level officials drawn from local

authorities. Persian king: “King of Kings”• Imperial spies watched and listened for the king • Tolerance of conquered peoples

(religion/culture) meant they would be easier to govern.

• Building of infrastructure: Royal Road, coinage, taxes, canals (Nile-Red Sea), qanats

B. Imperial governments promoted trade and projected military power over larger areas using a variety of techniques, including issuing currencies; diplomacy; developing supply lines; building fortifications, defensive walls, and roads; and drawing new groups of military officers and soldiers from the local populations or conquered populations.

2.2.II: Empires and states developed new techniques of imperial administration, based, in part, on the success of earlier political forms.

Greeks: • 100s of independent city-states (500 and

5,000 male citizens)• Not an empire but did expand through the

establishment of colonies around the Mediterranean and Black seas.

• Popular participation in political life that occurred within the city-states. This participation was based on the unique ideas of “citizenship,” of free people running the affairs of state, and of equality for all citizens before the law.

• Athenian democracy was direct rather than representative. Even at its height, it was far from universal, with well over half the population, including women, slaves, and foreigners, excluded from participation.

Comparison to Consider: Greece v. PersiaPersian Empire:• Imperial political system that comprised of

Mesopotamian polities, including the Babylonian and Assyrian empires.

• Far larger than its predecessors, stretching from Egypt to India, and ruled over some 35 million subjects.

• Featured an elaborate cult of kingship in which the emperor was secluded in royal magnificence and was approachable only through an elaborate ritual.

• Absolute ruler possessed a divine right to ruleby the will of the Persian god Ahura Mazda -Zoroastrianism.

• Effective administrative system that placed Persian governors, satraps, in each of twenty-three provinces, while lower-level officials were drawn from local authorities. This system was monitored by imperial spies.

• Policy of respect for the empire’s non-Persian cultural traditions.

• Point of collision: Ionia (Greek settlements on Anatolian seacoast)

• Anatolia = modern day Turkey

• In 499 BCE, some Ionian Greeks revolted against Persia

• Supported by Athens

• Persia responds with expeditions against Greeks in 490 and 480 BCE

• Greek astonishingly defeat Persians at land and sea

• Greeks win Battle of Marathon (490 BCE)

• Phedippides’ “famous run”

• Battle of Thermopylae (480 BCE)

Collision: The Greco-Persian Wars

Collision: The Greco-Persian WarsFailure of the Persian invasions of Greece had very little impact on the Persian Empire.• Greek victory confirmed their view that Greek

freedoms strengthened their will to fight, while Persia came to represent despotism.

• 20th Century perception of East/West divide in which Europe (the West) represented freedom & Asia (the East) represented despotism

50 years following the Greco-Persian Wars were the high point for participation in Athenian democracy = "Golden Age of Athens"• Parthenon built• Greek theater was born• Socrates was beginning his career• Philosopher/philosophy – “to know”

Example of Our Memory: 300• First a graphic novel by Frank Miller

• Tells the story of the Battle of Thermopylae and King Leonidas I of Sparta

• Criticisms: historical inaccuracies and the portrayal of Xerxes and the Persians – especially by the government of Iran

▪ Greek victory radicalized Athenian democracy resulted in bitter civil war known as the Peloponnesian War

▪ Athens was defeated, while the Greeks weakened themselves

▪ This infighting ultimately opened the way for Macedonia to conquer the Greek city-states

Consequence: Peloponnesian War

What changes did Alexander’s conquests bring in their wake?By 338 BCE, Philip II of Macedonia takes over Greece and unifies it – Philip’s son, Alexander, would take on a war against the Persians in order to unify Greece against a common enemy.

Over ten years during his expedition (333-323 BCE), Alexander, who was in his 20s, managed to take over Persia and loot Persepolis – a 24 year old was now “King of Asia.”

• Alexander’s conquests led to the widespread dissemination of Greek culture into Egypt, Mesopotamia, and India.

• The major avenue for this spread lay in the many cities established by the Greeks throughout the Hellenistic world.

Rome v. Han China• The Roman and

Chinese Empires had little direct contact but interesting similarities. • Both flourished ca. 200

BCE – 200 CE

• Were of similar size (~1.5 million sq. mi.)

• Both had 50 to 60 million people

• Between them, they controlled nearly half the world’s population

• Interesting variations on imperial theme

“Senātus PopulusqueRōmānus” – The Senate

and People of Rome

How did Rome grow from single city to the a huge empire?Foundation for empire-building enterprise: The Values of the Roman republic

Virtues: Duty, Courage, Discipline & Loyalty

Rule of law, rights of citizens, upright moralbehavior, & keeping one’s word, along with a political system that offered some protection to the lower a classes

Victory in the Punic Wars w/Carthage (264–146 B.C.E.) Extended Roman control over the western Mediterranean & made Rome a naval power.Each addition of territory created new vulnerabilities that drove further conquests.

So the Roman Army & specifically their weapon of choice: The Short Sword - made it happen.

How did Rome grow from a single city to the center of a huge empire?

• Rome’s army was a key to its success. • Poor soldiers hoped for land, loot, or

salaries.• Well-to-do or well-connected rewarded with

estates, earned promotion, & sometimes achieved public acclaim & high political office

• Wealth & resources of the less developed W. Med.

• Rome’s central location in the Mediterranean basin made empire building easier.

• Political support in Rome for its continued expansion. This ensured that the necessary manpower & resources were committed to empire building.

• Unlike the Roman Empire (which was new), the Chinese empire represented an effort to revive an imperial tradition that already existed under the Xia, Shang, & Zhou dynasties.

• Because of the preexisting imperial tradition in China, process of creating empire was quicker, though it was no less reliant on military force & no less brutal than the centuries-long Roman effort.

• Unlike Rome’s transition from republic to empire, creation of Chinese empire had only brief & superficial domestic repercussions.

How/why did making of Chinese Empire differ from that of the Rome?

Both: absorbed foreign religious traditions, though unfolded somewhat differently. In Rome, Christianity was born as a small sect of a small province in a remote corner of the empire.▪ Spread slowly for several centuries, ▪ mostly among poor & lower classes, ▪ suffering from intermittent persecution. ▪ 4th century C.E., it obtained state support from the

emperors & thereafter spread quite rapidly, becoming dominant religious tradition throughout Europe in the centuries after fall of Rome.

Case of China, Buddhism came from India, far beyond Chinese world.Introduced by Central Asian traders & received little support from Chinese rulers until Sui dynasty emperor Wendi (589–618 C.E.). Even then it became only 1 of several religious strands in a complex Chinese mix.

How/why did making of Chinese Empire differ ~ Roman?

Comparing theRoman & Chinese Empires

“Almost the entire world” &

“All under heaven”

▪ Invested heavily in public works designed to integrate their respective domains militarily and commercially.

▪ Invoked supernatural sanctions to support their rule.

▪ Politically, both empires established effective centralized control over vast regions and huge populations.

▪ In general, the Chinese empire was able to foster greater cultural homogeneity and more centralized political control than did its Roman counterpart.

▪ Roman & Chinese empires also had a different relationship to the societies that they governed.

▪ Roman Empire assimilated more cultural traditions, with Roman & Greek culture freely mixing & other non-Roman cultural traditions spreading throughout the empire. Romans ruled as a distinct minority within empire. While Romans gradually granted political citizenship, citizens retained their own cultures.

▪ Chinese culture was widely recognized as the model to which others should conform.

▪ Chinese empire, grew out of a much larger cultural heartland that was already ethnically Chinese. Moreover, as the Chinese empire expanded to the south, it actively assimilated non-Chinese people.

Comparing the Romans & Chinese

• Language served the 2 empires in important but contrasting ways.

• Latin, an alphabetic language depicting sounds, gave rise to distinctive languages: • Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Romanian

• Chinese did not, in part because Chinese written characters, which represented words or ideas more than sounds. But written Chinese could be understood by all literate people. So Chinese, more than Latin, served as an instrument of elite assimilation.

• Chinese, far more than the Romans, developed an elaborate bureaucracy to hold the empire together:▪ Chinese relied on a civil service system, complete with

examinations and selection by merit; • Romans relied more on regional elites & the army to

provide cohesion. ▪ Romans, though, unlike the Chinese, developed an

elaborate body of law applicable equally to all people of the realm.

Similarities between the Romans and Chinese

We will cover this material in Chapter 6!

2.2.III: Unique social and economic dimensions developed in imperial societies in Afro-Eurasia and the Americas.

A. Through excessive mobilization of resources, imperial governments caused environmental damage and generated social tensions and economic difficulties by concentrating too much wealth in the hands of elites.

B. External problems resulted from security issues along their frontiers, including the threat of invasions.

• Rome: Hunnic Empire

• China: Xiongnu Nomads

Geoffery Conrad

(right) and Arthur

Demarest (bottom)

of University of

Indiana and

Vanderbilt

University

2.2.IV: The Roman, Han, Persian, Mauryan, and Gupta empires created political, cultural, and administrative difficulties that they could not manage, which eventually led to their decline, collapse, and transformation into successor empires or states.

Queen Boudica, leader of the Iceni Tribe, Britain – woman who led uprising against Roman presence in Britannia, ca. 60-61

She has been reimagined in different ways – how can you see this in the images on this slide?

“…all this ruin was brought upon the Romans by a woman, a fact which in itself caused them the greatest shame.” Cassius Dio, Roman History, (LXII:1)

How did the collapse of empire play out differently in the Roman world & in China?

• While Han Empire came to an end in 220 C.E.,only the western half of Roman Empire collapsed, leaving the eastern half (subsequently known as the Byzantine Empire) to maintain tradition of imperial Rome for another 1,000 yrs.

• Nomadic or semi-agricultural peoples occupying frontier regions of both empires became growing threats that ultimately conquered portions of both empires.

• However, nomads who successfully invaded & settled in north China assimilated culturally,while the nomads who invaded & settled in Western Europe developed their own ethnic identities, even as they drew on Roman law & adopted Roman Christianity.

▪ Thus, the collapse of the western portion of the Roman Empire produced greater cultural changes that ultimately provided the foundation for the hybrid Latin & Germanic civilization that would arise in Western Europe.

▪ Most significant difference between the collapse of Roman world & Chinese world is that, after 350 years, Chinese imperial state was reassembled under Sui (589–618 C.E.), Tang (618–907 C.E.), & Song (960–1279 C.E.) dynasties.

▪ West. part of Roman Empire, no large-scale, centralized authority, encompassing all of West. Europe, has ever been successfully reestablished for any length of time.

How did the collapse of empire play out differently in the Roman world & in China?

Why were centralized empires so much less prominent in India than China?

▪ Indian empires failed to command the kind of loyalty or exercise the degree of influence that Chinese empires did.

▪ India’s unparalleled cultural diversity made a centralized empire less easy to construct than in more culturally united China.

▪ Frequency of invasions from Central Asia in comparison to China also made centralized empire less likely, because Indian states, which otherwise might have provided the nucleus for an all-India empire, were repeatedly smashed by invaders.

▪ In contrast to the situation in China, India’s social structure, embodied in a caste system linked to occupational groups, made for intensely local loyalties at the expense of wider identities that might have fostered empires.

Indian Empires to Know:• Maurya Empire (322 BCE – 187

BCE) • Gupta Empire (320 CE – 650 CE) • Mughal Empire (1526 – 1857) • British Raj (1858 – 1947) • Republic of India (1947 –

Present)

Maurya (322 BCE – 187 BCE) and Gupta (320 CE – 650 CE) Empires in India• Maurya Empire

• First major leader: Chandragupta

• In 327 BCE, Alexander the Great, after conquering Greece and much of the Mid East, pushed into northwestern India, establishing the border state of Bactria – Political reactions to this invasion produced a young soldier named Chandragupta Maurya who seized power along the Ganges River.

• 322 BCE: He began the Mauryan dynasty of rule. These were the 1st rulers to unify most of the subcontinent.

• Chandragupta’s style of government was autocratic, relying on his military power.

• Chandragupta’s grandson, Ashoka, was an even greater Mauryan ruler who extended Mauryan conquests, gaining control of territory through fierce fighting – we will discuss him more later!

• Gupta Empire

• In 320 CE, a new line of kings, the Guptas, established a new empire.

• The Guptas did not produce any individual rulers as influential as the 2 great Mauryan rulers, but they had perhaps greater impact on the shape of Indian civilization.

• 2 centuries of Gupta rule gave classical India its greatest period of political stability.

• It was ended in 535 CE by a new invasion of nomadic warriors, the Huns.

• After the decline of the Gupta empire, north India broke into a number of separate Hindu kingdoms and was not really unified again until the coming of the Muslims in the 7th century

The Gupta Golden Age • Education – University at Nalanda: lecture halls,

library, observatory

• Math – Discovery of zero and development of “Arabic” numerals – Decimal system; negative numbers; square roots

• Science• Indian scientists borrowed from Greek learning via

contact with Alexander the Great’s Bactria.

• Inoculation against smallpox; sterilization during surgery and in treatment of wounds.

• Knowledge of plastic surgery and setting of bones.

• Advances in astronomy (eclipses, identification of planets)

• Circumference of the earth; theory of gravity

• Strengthening of trade, especially between E and SE Asia

• Religion – Stupas in honor of Hindu gods with courtyards, paintings, sculptures –Lavish Hindu wall paintings and carving in caves (Ajanta)

• Literature – Growth of Sanskrit as the language of the educated – Huge output of epic poems